Go, Read: Comics, BarCons and Booze
I was sort of outright baffled by this article on the idea of alcohol-related socializing at conventions. I see comics as the least socially engaged community and industry to which I've been a witness. I went to a seminary and the seminarians drank and caroused more than the comics people I know. The idea of non-alcohol oriented post convention activities has been in practical employment since I've been around, whether it's people simply eating and going to bed, or going and doing something together (I went to a comedy show in San Diego once), or performing for one another, or the classic of people going and drawing in a room without any alcohol nearby.

So I couldn't tell you what's going on there. I imagine that we'll see both a more intense sub-strata of social relationships patterned after what's going on at the schools and facilitated by the sheer number of shows and active comics communities now, and I think we'll see a significant group of people attempt to utilize those shows as a professional opportunity over it being a personal one, just because they're that important now. I've been a teetotaler and a problem drinker for big chunks of my career in comics, and I can't even formulate a memory of how one year might have been different from another at a comics show.